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The Anatomy of MusicBee
MusicBee has many (many, many, many) layout options - so many they can be mysterious even to an experienced user. This is an attempt to outline all the options for you. __TOC__ This is the default layout you get when first installing MusicBee. Main Panel The center section of MusicBee can display your library, visualizations, Playing Track details, embedded Theater Mode views, the web browser and more. You can have multiple center panel tabs for access to different views at the same time. The tabs can be displayed in the caption bar, horizontally below the caption bar, or vertically to the left of the main panel. Right click on a tab and go to Configure Layout to change tabs orientation. Library Views You have three options for viewing your library: * Track Detail View * Album and Tracks View * Artwork View In any view, you have handy navigation options (found in the Configure Layout menu): The A-Z Jump Bar The A-Z Jump Bar is what it sounds like. It will allow you to jump to a particular letter in your library, according to whatever tag you have it sorted by. If you right click on the jump bar you will find the option to enable multi-character searches. The Track Browser The Track Browser will filter your library according to the entries you select. You can quickly change what tags are displayed in the browser by right clicking at the top of one of the columns. If you right click and go to the Configure Layout submenu, you can choose to display the Track Browser vertically at the left of your library rather than horizontally at the top, and you can also select the number of columns you want to display. Here’s a vertical Track Browser with two columns and “Show Track Count” selected. Other Panels There are small panels available on either side of the main panel. These can be hidden or retrieved via the arrow buttons in the bottom corners of MusicBee. By default, if you move your mouse to the edge of the screen while a side panel is hidden, it will pop up. You can disable this behavior by right clicking at the top of the pop-up and checking Disable Auto-Open. Left Sidebar The left sidebar is primarily for navigation. You can choose what nodes and subnodes you want to display via Layout Preferences. If MusicBee detects a device to sync, the Devices node will appear automatically. There are several optional components that you can display in the left sidebar: *Library Explorer: opened with the vertical show/hide button at the bottom of the panel, or by right clicking in the left sidebar. *Artwork: you can choose to display album art or artist photos by right clicking in the left sidebar. *Now Playing list: the now playing list can be moved to the left sidebar by itself, separate from the rest of the Now Playing panel. See the Now Playing panel settings for how. *Now Playing Panel: you can choose to move the whole Now Playing panel (see below) to the left sidebar. This disables the other left sidebar options, except for Library Explorer. Right Sidebar The right sidebar is primarily for displaying information about playing or selected tracks. Right sidebar components include: *Now Playing list *Track Details *Album Art *Lyrics *Player *Wavebar *Spectrum Visualization The right sidebar can also be converted into a floating window (essentially the same as the Compact Player). Right click at the very top of the panel, choose Panel Dock, and then Show in Floating Window. This is also where you can choose to move the info to the left sidebar. Bottom Panels The default layout does not have any bottom panels. There are three things that can be in a bottom panel, each of which also has another possible location: *The Playing Track Panel: to activate it, go to Preferences > Layout (1) and check the boxes for "show playing track panel" and "show on the bottom pane." Once activated, it will have a show/hide button just like the right and left panels. (The alternate location for this is in its own tab.) *Now Playing list: in addition to right or left sidebar, the Now Playing list (not panel) can be here. *Tag Editor: The tag editor can be displayed as a bottom panel instead of a floating window. If all three of these are present, they will be displayed from top to bottom as: *Tag Editor *Now Playing List *Playing Track Panel The Player The player can be displayed at the top or the bottom of the MusicBee window and/or in either of the sidebars. To relocate the player, right click on top of it and go to Customize Layout, then choose your preferred 'Display in...' option. If the player is at the top or bottom of the window and you also turn it on via the right sidebar "Customize Panel Settings" option, you will have two players. Menus By default, MusicBee's program menus are accessed through the MusicBee button at the top left. If you prefer a traditional menu layout, go to Layout Preferences. You can choose to display the menus in the caption bar or just below it. (Note that in order to put tabs in the caption bar, the menus MUST be behind the button.) The Bee logo contains another menu with commonly used entries from other menus, to save you a few clicks. Category:Customization Category:Guides